There is something that is so innately attractive about one dimensionality. That sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but please pause your doubt and follow me here for a second.

The most coveted instagram accounts are the ones that steadfastly replicate their golden, California hues and pastel pinks without fail. The exemplary modern living space is bare, white, skeletal. Uniquenesses are, perhaps, lost. Of course, golden hues and white walls needn't be the empirically defining parameters here. My point is that this modern generation seems to celebrate a person's adherence to arbitrary norms (and as a result, condemn idiosyncrasies). And yet, we all claim to know (and worse yet—be) thyself.

I myself am no exception to this paradigm. In fact, I started a second instagram account within this 365 because I had photos I wanted to post online that I convinced myself I could not post on my primary account. My primary account was, in some sense, a gated Valhalla whose Odin only permitted the most-likely contenders to receive #likes. Although my uniting theme may not have been photos of cacti and sun-kissed beaches, I clearly had imposed conventions upon myself which limited—in severe measure—the content I uploaded to my account. I realize now, however, that the dismissed misfits that ended up being posted on my secondary account made up a unity of photos that represented me best. I now regularly update this secondary account with photos that make sense only insofar as they mean something to me or represent some part of me (that is to say, they themselves fit no particular, over-arching mould or theme); and I don't post very regularly on my primary account because the 'creative' parameters I had set for myself began to funnel so narrowly that I now end up feeling suffocated and, for lack of a better term, insecure.

Of course, no person is required to use their instagram as a candid exposition of the intimacies and nuances of their life. Private life belongs to the private sphere. Furthermore, intentionally pursuing an attitude of posting photos without any uniting theme may in itself lead someone to the same paralysis of self I find myself dissecting here. I must believe that there exists a sort of self-expression which is effortless—subconscious even. Surely there is. I've felt it. And if this type of effortless self-expression exists, it must be the case that it operates meta-contemplatively; that is, below the surface of self-induced pressures and social strains.

In the few days which have transpired since the creation of this online space I've had time to contemplate how I would like to use it. As I began to mentally wrestle with the multitude of relevant considerations, I found myself instinctively limiting my uses. If I post worded muses, surely I can't post videos I make too. Or, more particularly, if my tone of voice is serious in one post, surely I can't introduce comedic verbiage in future posts. But why on earth, if the purpose of this blog is in fact to discover and encourage authentic self-expression, would I limit myself to a particular voice or schema? What if the abundance of fluctuating and diverse voices I produce here collaboratively represent me best?

What if I were to embrace the many varying, vastly unique, often times embarrassing dimensions which make up my composition?

I've spent a lot of my silent, waking hours battling this issue in my mind so I am grateful for your time spent listening to me battle it, no more effectively, here on this page. I encountered a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt some time ago while writing a paper on the self for a course in existentialism which I find useful when contemplating matters like this:

“When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else [...] you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.”

I look forward to being able to continue to update this blog with, well, anything. Whatever permeates my emotional sanctuary and elicits a response. I do believe it will take time—training even. An undoing of the social norms I've become complacent with. But in time I hope that this space begins to reflect the the oddity that I am: a physical chamber whose white walls are but thin streaks peaking through a messily scattered orchestra of mismatched colours and textures.